With the globalization of commerce, numerous products are marketed in many different countries. Since different natural languages are typically used in different countries, different versions of a master document associated with a product are needed when the product is marketed in different countries. For example, products marketed in the United States, Mexico, and France needs documentation (e.g., user manuals, product literature, safety warnings, etc.) in English, Spanish, and French, respectively. Depending on the market served by a factory assembling the products, the factory may need a specific version of the documentation.
Conventionally, a version of the product documentation in a relevant natural language is provided to a factory serving a particular market. When the master document is changed, an updated version is provided to the factory. If the factory has to switch to serve a different market in a different country, then a different version of the product documentation has to be provided to the factory so that the factory can make the switch. For instance, the factory may be assembling products for the United States and has been provided with an English version of the product documentation. When the manufacturer starts to offer the product in Mexico, the factory may need a Spanish version of the product documentation in order to assemble the products for Mexico. Currently, some manufacturers send a master copy of the product documentation offsite to a translator to translate the documentation into Spanish. Then the translation is provided to a printing facility to produce hardcopies of the documentation in Spanish and the hardcopies are delivered to the factory.
One problem with the above approach is that it is time consuming to generate the hardcopies of the documentation in Spanish and deliver the hardcopies to the factory. Thus, the factory may not respond to changes in the demand for the products in different markets quickly and flexibly.